The Moon

Interesting Facts About The Moon

The Moon is 238,900 miles from Earth.

The Moon orbits the Earth at 2,288 mph.

The Moon orbits the Earth every 27 days.

The estimated age of the Moon is 4.53 billion years.

The fasted trip to the Moon was 8 hours, 35 minutes with NASA’s Atlas V rocket, which was traveling past the Moon on its New Horizons Pluto mission.

The first human Moon landing was on July 20, 1969 by Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.

12 people walked on the Moon during NASA’s Apollo program.

The footprints on the Moon will remain for an estimated 100 million years because there is no wind to erode the surface.

The gravitational pulls between the Moon, Earth and Sun cause the tides.

Because of the Moon’s synchronous rotation with the Earth, we only see one side of the Moon from Earth.

The Moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth, by 3.8 centimetres or 1.5 inches per year.

There is ice on the Moon, likely delivered by comets.  The craters on the Moon are the result of impacts from comets and asteroids.

Gravity on the Moon is much weaker than Earth, only 16.5 percent of Earth’s gravity.

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